The poignant journey of a "minority student" who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation-from his past, his parents, his culture. Provocative in its positions on affirmative action and bilingual education, Hunger of Memory is simultaneously a powerful political statement, a profound study of the importance of language, and a moving portrait of a boy struggling to become a man.

"His story is extraordinarily sensitive and compassionate, yet disarmingly objective, a genuine act of human and religious faith. Few have presented with such skill the indestructible intimacy of family love and its resilience under the stress of change. This book provides new understanding of the dynamism of language in establishing a person's private and public identity."—Prof. Walter J. Ong, St. Louis University

“Superb autobiographical essay ... Mr. Rodriguez offers himself as an example of the long labor of change: its costs, about which he is movingly frank, its loneliness, but also its triumph.” — The New York Times Book Review

Richard Rodriguez is an editor at Pacific News Service, and a contributing editor for Harper's Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and the Sunday "Opinion" section of the Los Angeles Times. He has published numerous articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The American Scholar, Time, Mother Jones, and The New Republic.

Richard received a 1997 George Foster Peabody Award for his NewsHour Essays on American life. The Peabody Award is designed to recognize "outstanding achievement in broadcast and cable," and is one of television's highest honors.

Rodriguez's awards for Hunger of Memory include the The Christopher Prize for Autobiography; The Gold Metal for Non-Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California, and the Anisfeld-Wolf Prize for Civil Rights. He was awarded the Frankel Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the International Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council of California.

Rodriguez's autobiographical triology about American public life includes Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Father (1992) and Brown: The Last Discovery of America (2002). Rodriguez lives in San Francisco.